Ten essential plays by Neil Simon, one of the world’s most celebrated, translated, and widely performed playwrights, including Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Plaza Suite, Brighton Beach Memoirs, and more.

What did you like best about The Neil Simon Collection? What did you like least?

I learned how lucky I am to be living in the "Media Age" of 2014 with so much good material at my fingertips. What was considered good stuff in the 1960s and 1970s when I was a kid now seems weak and barely interesting. There are a few of Neil Simon's plays I would listen to again, but I'd be in no hurry. Want good, old comedy? Try Moliere!

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

LA TheaterWorks does a good job casting and directing these radio performances. I just wish the material was better.

Was The Neil Simon Collection worth the listening time?

Sorry, no.

Any additional comments?

Audible could at least have listed the plays in the order they appear in the audiobook. There is no way I could jump around to find my remembered favorites. Helping readers navigate within books is something Audible is VERY POOR at and SHOULD IMPROVE, as I have commented several times already.

I'm only done with the part 1 of 3 and I am hating the fact it will end in some certain point. I'm not usually into theatre but this kept me glued. Characters were so well played with Neil's life stories. Totally worth the credit!

This collection includes ten plays by Neil Simon. All of these had good, if not quite great, production values. There were a few flubbed lines and some of the audio titles are messed up, but the acting and audio quality are generally superb. I really enjoyed a few of these plays, but most I found entertaining yet they left me wanting. Virtually all of these plays seemed to me to be about eighty five percent of a truly great play. They have great characters, dialog, humor, wit, timing, but they we lacking the essential meaning that makes a great play far more than entertainment.

I liked Prisoner of Second Avenue and Barefoot in the Park the best as, in addition to wonderful acting and characters, below the humor and plot there were undercurrents concerning desire and need that brings these plays to near greatness, yet even these left me desiring just a little something more.

The Odd Couple did not move me, but was the most entertaining of the rest of the bunch. It was quite funny and delightfully played.

The coming of age plays including Brighton Beach Memoirs, Biloxi Blues, Broadway Bound, and Lost in Yonkers are all quite good with great characters, lots of laughs and some poignancy, but were just good entertainment.

The Suite plays Plaza Suite and California Suite are a bunch of short scenes set in hotels. These were my least favorite plays in this collection as they didn't really take me anywhere.

Overall this is a good collection of plays that I am glad to have listened to, but this is not a collection I will listen to again and again.

First, the plays are in alphabetical order as opposed to production/written order. That's a bit confusing if you're going to listen to the whole 'book' because a few of these plays are parts of a series, and the first part is not the first one you'll come to. Second, these are pretty dated. I actually enjoyed the first play, Barefoot In The Park, but not really any of the others that I listened to. I put up with a couple of more and finally skipped until I got to the Odd Couple, and listened to that for a while before I decided I wasn't having any fun. And quit. Maybe I'll go back to it someday but probably not. The performances were good.

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